With Kafka at the Lido – A Swimmer at the Civilian Swimming School
The Civilian Swimming School, a river swimming pool for private users, set up on the Lesser Town bank of the Vltava, could be seen from Kafka’s parents’ apartment. So Hermann Kafka took his son swimming with him on occasion. Later on, Kafka, who is said to have been a good swimmer, organized canoeing parties in a rented boat. Even when bedridden on 2nd June 1924, the evening before he died, Kafka remembered the time they had shared “at the Civilian Swimming School” in a letter to his parents. The swimming pool building, established in 1840, is still standing and is used today by a gentlemen’s club; only the wooden construction leading down to the river has been dismantled.
We spent countless happy hours on the boards of the Prague swimming pools, boating on the Vltava, in impressive feats of climbing on the river’s mill weirs. […] I admired Franz’s abilities in swimming and rowing. […] He was always more dextrous than I and, in breakneck situations, had a particular way of leaving you to your fate with an almost cruel smile (it meant something like: you sort it out for yourself).
Max Brod, On Franz Kafka
Germany has declared war on Russia. Swimming School this afternoon.
Franz Kafka, diary entry
